Get ready to farewell barcodes
Growing demand for more information about the products we buy could mean the end of the simple barcode – the blocks of black and white stripes that adorn most objects for sale and are scanned five billion times a day.
First used on a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum in 1974 in a store in the United States, barcodes have revolutionised the retail world, allowing cashiers to ring up products much faster and more accurately, while also streamlining logistics.
But shoppers are now demanding far greater transparency about products, and store owners need more information to help with stock taking, product recalls and to fight fakes.
The basic barcode is just not up to the job.
That could mean a costly upheaval for retailers and brands to change packaging and invest in new systems and scanners. But it should also bring benefits as more data helps them manage the flow of goods better.
The most ubiquitous barcodes allow an eight to 14 digit number to be read by a laser scanner.
For example, barcode 4-003994-111000 identifies a box as being a 375 gram pack of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.
However, that number does not directly capture any other information that might interest a shopper – such as ingredients, allergens or country of origin – nor does it provide a retailer with useful details such as the batch number or sell-by date.
SMARTPHONES DRIVE CHANGE
That data is usually printed on the pack, but consumers increasingly want to read it online, or with a smartphone app such as one that measures calories.
Retailers want data that can be scanned for tasks such as quickly locating faulty goods for recall or about-to-expire products for mark downs.
GS1, the non-profit organisation that assigns the unique numbers in barcodes, has developed a double-layered barcode it calls the ‘‘data bar’’ which can carry some extra details such as expiry date, quantity, batch or lot number.
That has allowed German retailer Metro to launch PRO Trace, a smartphone app that shows, for example, that a fillet of salmon on sale at a store in Berlin on August 25 was caught at the Bremnes Seashore fish farm off the coast of Norway on August 17 and processed in Germany on August 21.
Other retailers are also opening up, often supplementing the barcode with a pixilated square known as a quick response (QR) code. It can store dozens more data points and can be scanned by a smartphone camera to lead to a web page, but can still not be read by the majority of store scanners.
PEOPLE WANT MORE INFORMATION
Such tools are likely to fuel demands for more transparency. A GS1 survey found consumers are most interested in nutritional and ingredient information, details on allergens, organic certification, environmental impact and ethical standards.
Making such a wealth of data accessible via codes that can be scanned is only part of the problem.
A bigger challenge is gathering, storing and standardising the information in the first place.
The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), a global network of some 400 retailers and manufacturers from 70 countries, is co-ordinating efforts to harmonise product data and labelling.
Malcolm Bowden, president of global solutions at GS1, predicts agreement could come quickest – within a year – on sharing nutrition data as there are already broadly accepted standards, and calorie and allergen apps are proliferating.
But making such a wealth of data available will sound the death knell for the barcode. Only a QR code can carry that much information without taking up too much space on packaging.
The basic barcode is just not up to the job anymore as companies looked at new technology.
THE FUTURE
Longer term, more products could carry wireless tags such as the RFID labels that are being widely rolled out across the fashion industry.
These tiny tags, which can be embedded in an object and, unlike a barcode or QR code, do not need to be within the line of the sight of a reader, were for a long time too expensive for everyday goods but their price is falling fast.
Bowden predicts different systems will probably have to coexist for the next decade or so as retailers and logistics providers gradually upgrade their scanning systems.
‘‘I am convinced we will have a day where pretty much all information about all products will be available to all consumers,’’ he said.